DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Service installers for Oceanic Time Warner Cable get to visit all kinds of homes during the course of their daily rounds. During a morning last week, installer Keoki Galas, above right, joined with co-worker Joel Tomacder, left, to service an apartment in the Makiki area.

Keoki can connect you

The service installer has been bringing the world of cable to people for the past eight years

George "Keoki" Galas

Title: Service installer

Job: Installs cable and other services offered by Oceanic Time Warner Cable

George "Keoki" Galas is a service installer who loves bringing the human touch to a high-tech field. He enjoys meeting new people day after day as he hooks up their homes for cable and other services offered by Oceanic Time Warner Cable, his employer for the past eight years.

Galas, 43, moved to Oahu in 1983 from Molokai, where he had been a star player for Molokai High School's basketball team, the Farmers ("Does that strike fear in your heart or what?"). He moved here to attend Leeward Community College, because, he said, it was "something to do." He majored in teaching, but he hasn't graduated yet, he said, because "I'm on the 40-year plan for a four-year degree."

In the meantime, he has worked as a substance-abuse counselor for the YMCA, in sales for Honolulu Cellular, and now as an installer for Oceanic.

In his spare time, Galas is a dancing instructor who teaches ballroom staples through the 300-member Friends of the Ala Wai Ballroom Dance Academy, which holds classes at the Ala Wai Golf Course club house. His teaching partner is his significant other, Kimberly Suenaga, whom he met in dance class and with whom he lives in Moiliili.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Galas installed cable and a signal splitter for a family that had just moved into the apartment.

Mark Coleman: What is your job title?

George "Keoki" Galas: I'm a service installer?

Q: Would that be "cable guy" for short.

A: Basically. (Laughter)

Q: How long have you had your current job?

A: I've been with the company for eight years in May.

Q: Do you know how many installers the company has overall?

A: I'd say maybe about 300. We use contractors, too.

Q: That's a lot of installers.

A: We're looking at statewide, too, yeah? But, yes, we have a lot. We have close to 950 employees, I think. We're not a small company anymore.

Q: What is your daily routine at work?

A: For me, we meet at our hub -- we call it our hub; it's our group -- and we meet at 7:30 in the morning at Ala Moana Center . We turn in our paperwork and equipment from the previous day, and then we pick up our equipment and work orders for that day.

Then we have a safety meeting, and discuss any information that is pertinent to what we're doing.

Sometimes we have little awards for people doing certain things in the company, to give them some recognition.

And then we're issued our work load for the day, and we find out what area we're working in and the group mates that we're working with that day.

Q: You don't go out in the field alone?

A: We do go alone. We have our own work orders, but we have a little group that we call if we need any help or we have free time to help the others.

Q: In how many homes or residences do you think you have installed cable?

Q: In the eight years? I don't know, maybe about 500. Because sometimes you have four appointments a day, and other times you can have as many as eight or nine.

Q: Do you ever have trouble with people's dogs?

A: Yes. I mean, I try not to, but, yes, I have trouble with dogs. And there are times we have trouble with the people, too.

Q: Like what?

A: Sometimes you run into people who could be on some kind of medication or drugs or stuff like that, so sometimes it's not safe for you to be there. Other times you have people that could be a little bit irate because the system is not working that well.

But it's like that in any kind of service job, that you'll run into these kinds of customers. So you really have to pay attention when you're out in the field with customers. It's a fun job, though.

You know what makes this job good, Mark?

Q: No.

A: We work with the latest technology -- Voice Over IP, high-speed Internet, digital video recorders, wireless, high definition. So what we do is work with technology, but we also work with the customer. So it's the best of both worlds: technology and the people. It's great. It has the human touch.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Service installers for Oceanic Time Warner Cable usually work alone, but if they have free time, they will help others in their "hub." Above, Keoki Galas, right, last week helped co-worker Joel Tomacder install a cable signal at a Makiki apartment, and were all smiles as everything tested fine.

A: Yeah. He doesn't portray us very well. (Laughter) I get called that all the time, though. "Hey, Cable Guy!" And we're not like that other guy, the health inspector guy.

Q: That's Larry the Cable Guy (in the movie "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector"). I was going to mention him next.

A: I headed you off at the pass.

Q: Do you plan to work as a cable installer until you retire?

A: This is a career job. Oceanic Time Warner is an awesome company to work for. The people that I work with, my group, they're very helpful, knowledgeable, so this is the one. No need to go anywhere else.